Study: China to be a bigger movie market than U.S. in seven years

It could be good for Hollywood as Hollywood may be forced to come up with original ideas for once.

Competition does everyone good.

 

Ah, yeah. I actually don't buy this.

Do you really think the world is going to gobble up censored and state run movies about how wonderful communism will be?

 

Actually a reliance on cross cultural internatinal hits is a major contributor to hollywood relying on pre-established properties.

Imagine finding the lowest common denominator for the world. It has to be the least likely to offend, widely appealing project you can think of. Get ready for endless decades of Spiderman.

 

Michael Bay, Paul WS Anderson, Stephen Sommers: Congratulations, you won.

**shoots self**

 

At this rate pretty soon all movies will be made in the Chinese language.

 

I'm not sure if Hollywood will exactly pay heed to this news. China still determines exactly which foreign movies are released at all, and if they are, when. That's how TDKR ended up with the same opening date in China as ASM. They don't exactly care about making money off of foreign films - they'd rather sell their own.

 

It has nothing to do with competition. Foreign movies i.e Hollywood are still the biggest draw in china regardless of the government's attempts to limit them and hurt their openings.

The real meaning is that hollywood is going to take china much more into consideration now for its films. A slight example of this was the last minute decision to remove all references to china in the red dawn remake and replace it with North Korea.

You also will be seeing more hollywood filmmakers trying to work with china in order to get better distribution essentially as james cameron is doing i believe. There are pluses and potentially a lot of negatives to things like this.

 

What's really annoying about this trend is the increase in the number of pointless and annoying Chinese characters and/or subplots cropping up in movies that seem really forced and out-of-place. Out of recent films, Looper and Expendables 2 stick out as the worst offenders. And there was way too much emphasis on the 'Chinese' aspects in Premium Rush as well. It's really starting to get on my nerves now.

 

Well, the United States is better than China at one thing:

- Turning no talent hacks into celebrities. I do not know how China feels about our No Talent hacks.

 

Quite frankly, China doesn't need the money Hollywood movies generate. They'd rather push their own movies on the Chinese public with a tightly controlled message. But all that would do is drive away Chinese movie goers who would much rather watch Hollywood productions.

 

I actually liked how Looper incorporated China into the movie, at least in that it was a small section of the movie and lead to a great line from Jeff Daniels about why Joe should learn Chinese instead of French.

But I do agree that it's getting really annoying with the amount of concessions and contrived Chinese parts and influences in a lot of big films nowadays. I'd really hate for Hollywood to feel beholden to China for their content, like the Red Dawn nationality change

 

Well, you know what they say about those Chinese.


They exist.

 

I am not saying I hate every single Chinese thing in movies these days. I hate it when it is done in a manner that feels forced, shoehorned and overly patronizing. It's just so transparent that the filmmakers are desperately trying to appease their Chinese overlords. If they really want to implement Chinese elements in movies in order to secure financing, then at least do it in a meaningful way that doesn't stick out unnecessarily in the film.

 

I understand where you're coming from, but I think those elements you're referring to are more there as plot devices than sucking up to China.

Right now, China is the go-to country to represent "mysterious foreign power with money." When a scriptwriter needs a shorthand way of introducing that element, it's easy to draw on China.

In the 1980s, it was Japan and Saudi Arabia that were in that role. In the 1990s, it was Japan and Germany.

 

This should come as no surprise, but I am curious to how Hollywood would react. I thi k there will be more references to China in attempt to get films approved I'm China, but that's it.

By the way, It's that time of the year again! Come discuss the 2012 SHH! Movie awards